Four Songs From Pop Culture About Rehab You Should Relisten To

We’re currently living in a world where addiction is rife. Since the start of the pandemic, and in reality before that, the last decade has seen figures shoot up when it comes to the number of deaths related to the likes of drugs and alcohol, and it’s incredibly worrying.

Rehab clinics such as Primrose Lodge are reporting more people coming through the door and substance abuse and addiction has long been something associated with the arts, and in particular music.

You can count so many musicians we’ve lost before their time due to addiction and substance abuse, with many singing about their struggles through their art. So much so, they’re well worth listening to again to really grasp the emotion they were feeling at that time and how addiction can take over your life.

Here are four songs you should listen to for an honest look of addiction…

Rehab – Amy Winehouse

A huge part of going into recovery addiction is acknowledging that you do have a problem. Denial is one of the first signs of addiction, so when Amy Winehouse says they tried to make her go to rehab but she said, “no, no, no”, that is essentially that period in her life.

She states she doesn’t have time to go and her Dad thinks she’s fine and doesn’t need it. Of course, we all knew she did with her eventually dying from alcohol addiction and poisoning back in 2011.

The song came off the album Back to Black which is a beautiful piece of music, with the song of the same name, also portraying that period of her life, with the song focusing on depression, something that can very much lead to addiction.

Under the Bridge – Red Hot Chili Peppers

Anthony Kiedis’ relationship with addiction is well documented and he’s previously said that Under the Bridge describes his darkest days while suffering from heroin addiction.

The lyrics refer to drug taking and is all about being at those darkest hours where you’re under a bridge or on the street injecting the substance and the feeling that it falsely creates, taking him to the “place he loves”, taking him “all the way”.

However, Kiedis is now clean and he certainly won’t be wanting to go back there.

The Hunger – Florence and the Machine

We all have a hunger and for Florence Welch in her early to mid 20s she certainly had a hunger for drugs and alcohol that was having a real impact on her life. In the song she sings, “I thought that love was in the drugs, but the more I took, the more it took away” and is a song that describes the realisation that the life she was leading was being hugely affected by her addiction.

She’s spoken out about getting clean when she was 27 and having that realisation that if she carried on she’d end up dead, and The Hunger is a song that essentially works through that realisation.